


Bears and Swords Make Great Gifts

by TooGoodToBeBad



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, Felix and Mercedes do not show up because Annette and Sylvain stole the whole fic, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Garreg Mach Monastery (Fire Emblem), Gen, I hope I tagged the relationships right, Mentioned Blue Lions Students (Fire Emblem), Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), The Annette and Sylvain friendship agenda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:55:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28151988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TooGoodToBeBad/pseuds/TooGoodToBeBad
Summary: After the Professor arranges a little gift-exchange for the Blue Lions, Sylvain and Annette try to help each other find the perfect gifts.
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Sylvain Jose Gautier/Mercedes von Martritz
Comments: 17
Kudos: 38





	Bears and Swords Make Great Gifts

**Author's Note:**

> I dunno how to really tag relationships if they're not _actually_ in the story, but oh well.

“Last week,” Professor Byleth said as she walked down the room and up to the chalkboard, “was pretty terrifying. I’d imagine you’re all shaken by what went down at Remire Village. Sometimes I forget how young this class is.”

Sylvain nodded along, unsure of where the Professor was going with this whole thing. He’d never known her to be the sort of person who wasted time for the sake of it, so he figured she’d get to the point soon enough.

“I spoke with my father on the way back here, and I had an idea. It’s a little tradition we used to do in our mercenary group, so I figured I’d share it with you guys.” There was a tiny smile on her face now. 

Around the room, Felix raised a curious eyebrow, Ashe and Ingrid widened their eyes in anticipation, Annette, Mercedes, and Flayn oohed and aahed appreciatively, Dimitri was staring at the Professor, and Dedue was impassive as ever. Sylvain leaned forward in his chair, his curiosity piqued.

The mechanics, as it turned out, were pretty straightforward. Everyone’s names would be written on pieces of paper and placed inside a box. They would take turns drawing names out of the box, and they would have to get a gift for the person they drew.

“Nothing expensive,” Professor Byleth was quick to clarify. “The gift just has to be thoughtful.”

The whole class agreed to participate, so that matter was quickly settled. All that was left to do was have everyone pick out names. While the Professor had also stressed that the whole point of this tradition was secrecy, Sylvain couldn’t help but watch with barely restrained interest as everyone else drew names.

Dimitri immediately flushed red when he picked his name, so Sylvain figured he drew the Professor’s name. Dedue was unreadable. Judging by the scowl that crossed Felix’s face and the curse words he muttered under his breath, Sylvain figured Felix got his name. Ashe’s blanched and nervous face probably meant he drew Dimitri, and Ingrid’s little squeak and subtle glances sent Ashe’s way meant Ingrid drew his name. Flayn let out a short gasp, but that actually didn’t narrow it down too much since she was amazed at pretty much everything. Mercedes’ serene smile was indecipherable, and the way Annette mumbled “oh no'' under her breath provided more questions than answers.

When Professor Byleth finally called Sylvain's name, a confident excitement coursed through his veins, and he reached into the box. His fingers danced around in the empty space as he grasped for an elusive scrap of paper. When he felt it in between his fingertips, he pulled his hand out and read the name written on it.

Mercedes.

And when the Professor began another lecture, he pushed her name to the back of his mind for the moment.

* * *

“Since when do you stay in the library?” a cheery voice called out to him. 

Sylvain glanced up from his textbook and found himself looking up at Annette’s bright blue eyes.

“I do study sometimes,” he chuckled before closing his book. “Girls don’t like guys with more height than brains.”

“Unfortunately, you’ve got plenty of both,” she giggled before taking a seat across him. “But I’m glad I found you! I think I might need your help with something.”

He raised a curious eyebrow and tilted his head towards her. 

“Sure thing,” he said with a smile.

“It’s about the little gift thing that the Professor planned the other day.” Annette cast a furtive glance around the library before lowering her voice to a hushed whisper. “I drew Felix’s name.”

“Then you have it easy,” Sylvain laughed and leaned back in his chair. “You could get him anything, really. He won’t really care.”

Her face fell a bit at his words. “Really? But I wanted to get him a really nice and thoughtful gift! Something that he’d really appreciate, you know!”

“Why?”

Annette was now pointedly looking at anything but him. “You know, because I want to show him how much I appreciate him as a classmate and friend! That’s all there is to it.”

“All there is to it?” Sylvain repeated while taking note of the faint pink that was dusting her cheeks. 

And when she nodded her head perhaps a bit too vigorously to be convincing, he bit back another laugh as he watched her orange braids flop around her head. 

“That’s right,” she replied eagerly. “All there is to it.”

“Alright, I’ll help you out,” he said after a momentary silence. 

Her face lit up at his words, and a cheery smile crossed her face. 

“But,” he added, “I’ll need you to do something in return for me. A favor for a favor.”

“No problem! What do you need help with?”

Sylvain’s hazel eyes scanned the library for any eavesdroppers before he leaned forward and ran his fingers through his crimson hair. “Mercedes. I got her name.”

From across the table, Annette’s eyes widened in excitement. “Ooh! This will be fun! Do you need help picking something out for her?”

“That’s the idea.”

“Won’t be a problem!” She beamed at him. “If you’d like, we can go to town together and get the gifts. I mean, if you’re not busy today or anything!”

“Never too busy for a cute little thing like you.” He smirked.

“Ha ha.” She rolled her eyes at him and let out a small giggle. “How about we go this afternoon?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

* * *

While Garreg Mach was by no means a frozen wasteland like northern Faerghus was, Sylvain could still feel winter’s weather biting at his bones and nipping at exposed skin. By his side, Annette was all bundled up in a teal scarf, a big coat, and one of those winter hats with a pom-pom at the top. 

“Aren’t you cold? Annette asked as she eyed him up and down.

“Not really.” He shrugged in his probably-too-thin coat. “It’s much colder up north. I’m sure ice runs in my blood at this point.”

“I don’t envy you,” she replied while they walked down a flight of stairs and into the marketplace.

Despite the chill, the marketplace was still very much alive. Passersby crowded around street performers while merchants hawked their wares. Sylvain let his eyes take in little glimpses of the world around him, and he was met with a dizzyingly exciting environment full of shiny knickknacks and exotic fruit.

“I’ve got it!” Annette exclaimed with a tone that implied that she’d just thought of what was quite possibly the greatest idea in the history of forever. “What if I got Felix a sword?”

Sylvain shook his head adamantly. “No swords.” 

“But he loves swords!” she protested.

“Felix has more swords than he does friends. Besides, we’re working on a limited budget; whatever sword you could get wouldn’t be worth it anyway.”

“Phooey,” she grumbled. “Now I’m out of ideas.”

“Fret not, my little friend.” He grinned and patted her on the head good-naturedly. “That’s what I’m here for.”

Together, the two of them scanned through dozens of tables while trying to find a gift that Felix wouldn’t hate. They glanced at everything, from gaudy baubles and trinkets to rare and expensive books. And swords. Lots of swords.

“Hmm,” Sylvain hummed to himself as he looked through a particularly grumpy-looking merchant’s selection of tea-leaves. “How do you feel about getting him some tea?”

“I dunno,” Annette mumbled beside him. “Alymran Pine Needle is a bit out of my budget.”

Something in his head clicked at that very moment. With a very slow and deliberate turn of his head, he flashed her a very toothy and self-satisfied grin. 

“Keeping track of preferences now, are we?”

Her jaw dropped and she stared at him like some sort of fish while a deep red bloomed across her cheeks. “N-n-no! You _just_ mentioned it.”

“I most certainly did not,” he laughed while the grin on his face widened. “I know how to pick my words, Annette. You just filled in the blanks.”

“Y-you tricked me!”

“Wasn’t intentional, I swear it,” he said with a wink. “So how, pray tell, did you get your hands on that little tidbit of information?”

He had to strain to hear her when she mumbled into the fabric of her scarf. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.”

“I said we take tea together sometimes!” she huffed indignantly.

And there it was. Sylvain was sure his face was going to hurt from all the smiling he was doing.

“So Felix just drops his training every time you ask him to tea? I’m impressed. Ingrid and I can never get him to leave the training grounds.”

“It’s not like that!” she protested weakly. “Sometimes he’s the one who invites me.”

If Sylvain’s grin could get any bigger, it would have swallowed his entire face. 

“Annette, humor me for a moment. How often do you think Felix invites me or Ingrid to tea?”

Annette chewed on her bottom lip while her brow furrowed in concentration. “I dunno, once a month?”

“Try _never_.”

“You’re tricking me again,” she pouted. “There’s no way that’s true.”

“I know I say a lot of ridiculous things, but I’m being serious.” Sylvain wrapped a friendly arm around her shoulder and led her further into the marketplace. “‘I already see you guys everyday,’” he added in a ridiculously exaggerated imitation of Felix’s dry and sardonic voice.

“But you,” he chuckled, more to himself than anything, “you’ve managed to get Felix Fraldarius, famed for his charisma, affability, and overall politeness, to sit down for tea. More than once. I wonder how you managed to pull that off.”

With a clumsy sort of grace, Annette shrugged out of his clutches and turned to face him.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to get at here, Sylvain, but whatever it is you’re thinking-”

“Is that Felix over there?” Sylvain made a big show of raising his eyebrow and craning his neck.

The violent and vibrant blush that blossomed on her face was all the evidence Sylvain needed. Visibly agitated, her eyes darted to and fro, scanning through the crowd for that familiar scowl until Sylvain could no longer contain his laughter.

“A little nervous?”

“S-shut up!” she hissed at him. “Just because we occasionally study together and take tea together twice a week does not mean-”

“Twice a week?!” he asked incredulously. Evidently Sylvain wasn’t paying nearly enough attention to Felix’s comings and goings.

“If you don’t drop it, Sylvain, I’ll… I won’t help you pick out a gift for Mercie!”

The smile was wiped from his face, and he raised a curious eyebrow at her. 

“Are you threatening me, Annette?”

She nodded her head defiantly. “You bet I am.”

“Fair enough. Consider the matter dropped.”

“Good,” she huffed. “Because if you didn’t get Mercie anything nice, she’d be so disappointed in you.”

For some reason, the thought of disappointing Mercedes, who seemed to be in perpetually high spirits, settled like a rock in his stomach. Mercedes, who had something pleasant to say about everyone (even Sylvain). Mercedes, who saw something good in everyone ( _especially_ Sylvain).

“Are you sure?” he asked her as he absent-mindedly scratched behind his ear. “She seems the type to just be happy that she got a gift in the first place.”

“If it were coming from someone else, maybe,” Annette hummed. “But you… well she thinks very highly of you!”

The fact that anyone, especially Mercedes, thought “highly” of him was doing something funny to his breathing. Despite the winter air biting at his skin, something warm and pleasant buzzed in his chest and burned in his cheeks. 

“Really?”

Annette’s eyes bore into him with a suddenly intense curiosity. “Are you blushing, Sylvain?”

“Must be the weather,” he mumbled as he raised a hand to his cheeks.

“You _are_ blushing!” Annette giggled as her eyes widened in disbelief.

There was a sweet and innocent giddiness laced through her voice, and in the moment Sylvain felt very much like humoring her.

“So what if I am?”

She lowered her voice to a hushed whisper (which Sylvain thought was wholly unnecessary; no one in the marketplace really cared about him anyway). “Do you _like_ Mercie?”

All his words left him, and Sylvain’s silver tongue was all tied up in knots.

“I… I don’t know.”

Annette nodded like this was the most sensible answer in the world.

“I mean, we spend a lot of time together,” he rambled on while she listened intently. “And not just because I get punched in the face a lot and she has to heal me or whatever. But it’s not just her being polite or anything. It feels like she genuinely wants to spend time with me. You’re not gonna tell her anything I’ve said or might say?”

“Not a word to anyone, if you’ll extend me the same courtesy.”

He laughed at that, but when she reached out for a handshake, he obliged her. 

“You’ve got a deal.”

They continued their journey down cobblestone paths and around the stalls that formed a haphazard maze, eyes still on the lookout for something worth giving.

“It feels weird to talk about this with anyone, but I like spending time with her. If that means I like her, then I guess I do. It’s just…” he trailed off for a bit and tried to fight the smile that was curving his lips upwards and that fuzzy ball of heat settling in his ribcage. “It’s nice to just be real with her — no judgement, no shallow platitudes, none of that. She thinks I’m a good person. And she makes me think that I might be, sometimes.”

“I’m not supposed to tell you this,” Annette whispered and leaned her head in conspiratorially. “But she once told me she thinks you’re quite handsome.”

This was nothing new to Sylvain; the word was tossed around in his presence so often it was starting to lose meaning. But to hear it come from Mercedes, who never ever lied, felt different. Without the usual malice and underhanded intentions behind the word, it felt oddly freeing. Strange, even, that people could genuinely think he was _handsome_.

“I should thank her, I guess.”

“You can’t, because it was supposed to be a secret,” Annette giggled before her eyes honed in on something behind him and lit up with glee. “I think I just found the perfect gift for Mercie!”

* * *

About five minutes later, Sylvain was walking down the street with a stuffed bear in his hands while Annette grinned beside him like she’d just done a Very Good Deed (which, to be fair to her, she did).

“You’re sure Mercedes likes this kind of stuff?” he asked, almost hesitantly.

“Without a doubt.” Annette nodded her head with the conviction of someone who only occasionally made mistakes. 

“Now that just leaves us the issue of finding a gift for Felix. But in honor of our agreement, I will not joke about you writing him a poem where you call him the ‘handsomest swordsman in all of Garreg Mach.’”

“You said you’d drop that!” she groaned and attempted to whack him on the shoulder. Unfortunately for her, Sylvain had been punched by Ingrid enough times that he easily sidestepped. 

“But I didn’t make the joke!”

“You pretty much said it,” she muttered. “Please just help me look for something. I held up my end of the bargain.”

“You certainly did,” he replied and held the bear close to his face. “Mr. Snuggles and I will keep our eyes open.”

That bright and bubbly laugh that she gave was infectious, and he found himself laughing along. He (and Mr. Snuggles) perused through various merchants’ wares until he settled on something. He reached for a tiny piece of wood, no bigger than his thumb, whittled into the shape of a sword, and the twine of a necklace was wrapped around its hilt.

“Ooh, that’s perfect!” Annette chirped excitedly, having seemingly materialized right beside him. “Good find, Sylvain!”

After she eagerly fished a few coins out of her bag and turned to Sylvain with such a cheery smile, he couldn’t help but smile back at her.

“Thanks for your help today!” she said. “I dunno if I would’ve been able to get something nice for Felix without your help. You were so against my buying him a sword. Imagine if I’d spent all my money on some cheap sword that broke the first time he stabbed a bandit!”

“It was my pleasure,” he replied, and he meant it. “And I owe you some thanks as well. Not just for this,” he pointed his head towards the bear in his hands, “but for everything else. Today was nice, Annette.”

“It was,” she hummed thoughtfully. “It’s nice to see you enjoying yourself.”

“We should spend more time together. I don’t want to cut into any of your special tea time with Felix-”

“Again?”

“If you need any tips for how to win his heart-”

“Sylvain!”

She couldn’t keep the laughter out of her voice, and neither could he. And so they walked back to the monastery with stupidly wide grins plastered on their faces while the winter sun began its descent into an early sunset, marking the end of a surprisingly pleasant day.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Feedback and comments are appreciated!
> 
> Here's a light and silly piece about Annette and Sylvain being friends because why not. 
> 
> Consider this a Christmas fic, I guess. Merry Christmas, and may the next year bring the blessings you need!
> 
> I hope you guys liked this!


End file.
